I have had a number of people say they lose track of all that is going on in my fic, due to my sadly infrequent update rate. The story in of itself has a lot going on too I realize. So have written two types of summaries to be posted as an author's note on the next update this weekend. I'm looking for opinions on which format works better. Thanks.

Format One:

Cast in order of appearance:​

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden: A wizard private investigator, on the out with his world’s wizarding authority, The White Council. He is framed for multiple murders, surrounding a dark summoning ritual.

Bob: Spirit of a powerful warlock trapped in a skull in Harry Dresden’s possession. He aids and is a general magical resource for Harry Dresden. He also has a penchant for smut novels and is a pervert.

Karrin Constanza Murphy: A lieutenant detective with Chicago Police Department, investigating the murders. She uses Harry Dresden as a consultant in cases which lean towards the bizarre. She gets caught up in magical affairs, running from a wizard assassin, her memory abused, and eventually saved by Harry Potter, who in a moment of madness thinks she is his mother.

Donald Morgan: A Warden of the White Council of Wizards. Wardens are the group serve the dual purpose of a police and military force for the White Council. He dislikes Harry Dresden and is on the hunt for the Outsider, Harry Potter.

Harry James Potter / The Outsider: A wizard of the JK Rowling universe. Having defeated Voldemort, and betrayed by the Ministry, he was spending his years in their prison, slowly losing his mind. He is summoned across worlds by a group of warlocks in Dresden universe. Now he struggles with hallucinations and people trying to kill him or use him, while he tries to curtail his disappointment at not being able to get back at the Ministry who betrayed him.

Ancient Mai: A female wizard high in the White Council hierarchy. She is very powerful and able to morph herself to a youthful or aged appearance. She bears some unexplained animosity for Harry Dresden, and some of it has to do with his family history that he does not know. She is also on the hunt for the Outsider.

Nymphie Staffcharmer: a porn star from Harry Potter’s world. Potter names the ‘power he knows not’ Nymphie Staffcharmer logically thinking if it was love and playing hard to get it had to be the luscious Staffcharmer who graced the magical glossies of his world. She is his mysterious power, recently released, that he doesn’t have any understanding of.

The Blackstaff / Ebenezer McCoy: He is the White Council’s secret wet work’s man. He is used when someone goes out of their laws and they can’t legitimately send a Warden after them. He was the one sent to assassinate Karrin Murphy, when Harry Potter intervened and saved her. He is also Harry Dresden’s mentor and teacher, someone for whom Dresden had a lot of respect.

Warden Guzman: He is on Warden Morgan’s team, but does not share in Ancient Mai and Morgan’s dislike for Dresden. He treats Dresden as an annoyance at worst and has saved him from trouble several times. He apparently chooses to take his orders from a wizard called The Gatekeeper.

The Gatekeeper: He, like Ancient Mai, is on the highest echelon of White Council hierarchy. Second in power only to The Merlin, he is responsible for safeguarding the doors into his dimension. He quietly supports Dresden, and is at odds with Ancient Mai and The Merlin. He holds power over Harry Potter, with whom he has apparently fought for over fifty years. Harry Potter has no memory of this, but The Outsider insists that he has traveled time on numerous occasions to keep him from entering the Dresden world.

Michael Carpenter: is a Knight of the Cross, sometimes called a Knight of the Sword. He is appointed be heaven and wields a divine sword. He crosses paths with Dresden and Potter when he comes looking for help to find what the Fallen Angels had summoned. He believes Potter to be a Phoenix Chosen Knight, a Dragon Slayer, and invites them to dinner.

Lasciel: is a Fallen Angel, who travels Earth by way of taking over a human host. She meets Potter and gives him a coin with a trapped Fallen Angel inside. She tells him that it was her heavenly duty to protect the angel in that coin and give her to someone who protect her. She believed Potter to be the Outsider who is meant to be their champion, and taking a promise that he will protect her, gives him the coin in her care. She is following her own agenda, separate from the head of the fallen angels who had had Harry Potter summoned.

Charity Carpenter: is Michael Carpenter’s wife. She is sent by her husband to check on Potter, after he is admitted to the hospital following his duel with the Gatekeeper. Potter annoys her but wins her sympathy partly. Potter has a mild crush on her too.

Important Groups:​

Fallen Angels / Black Denarians: These are a group expelled from heaven and trapped in coins. When a human touches the coin they invite the fallen angel into their body, who then uses the human as a host. Much of their knowledge of heaven is restricted, and they can not use it, nor pass it to their human hosts. They have therefore summoned Harry Potter, a parseltongue, who can speak the language Black Denarians were cursed with. They expect him to be a champion of theirs, and be able to increase their powers. So far we have seen only Lasciel from their group, who had an agenda of their own.

The White Council: is the council of wizards in the Dresden verse. Their leading body is the Senior Council, on which Ancient Mai and the Gatekeeper sit with others.

The Wardens: They are the White Council’s police force and military arm.
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Second Format:

Harry Potter was summoned by a group of Fallen Angel worshipping Warlocks, apparently for his ability to speak parseltongue, which is also the language of Fallen Angels. The Fallen Angels are also referred to as the Blackened Denari or the Black Denarians; it is through their machinations that Harry Potter is pulled into the world where Harry Dresden is a wizard.

Wizards of Dresden world believe Harry Potter to be an Outsider, a type of beings that are very powerful and extremely destructive, even their most powerful wizards together are afraid of Outsiders. Within their universe Harry Potter is, in fact, an Outsider, as he had to travel through the Outside to come to the gates of Dresden’s World.

Harry Potter is fairly powerful, but most of his successes against Dresden world’s wizards is because they don’t understand the kind of magic he can do. Harry Potter already recognizes that these different wizards are dangerous because they don’t seem to need wands to do magic.

Potter has come into contact with one Fallen Angel, Lasciel, who operating outside of the Black Denari hierarchy gives Potter a special coin that she had been guarding for as long as his existence. Potter has a massive crush on her, but doesn’t realize yet how dangerous she is and how she manipulated into siding with her.

In the mean time Potter has also met a man Michael Carpenter, who is a natural enemy of Fallen Angels, being appointed by God as a Knight of the Cross to battle Fallen Angels on Earth. Michael saw something in Harry, through divine encouragement, that made him think Potter is an Occisor Dracoginea, a Phoenix Chosen Knight, appointed to destroy Dragons. In his work Michael has battles dragons so he feels for seeing such a young appointed knight. Potter is clueless of this, thinking that Michael Carpenter must be referring to something to do with his friendship with Fawkes, and Fawkes’s tears in his body.

Basically a lot of people think they know what Harry Potter is, but he is stuck in a case of multiple mistaken identities trying to make sense of it all.

Through it all Harry Dresden has been thrown against Harry Potter again and again, perhaps by design, perhaps by chance. But they are now tenuous allies, both friends with a police officer, Karrin Murphy.

Let’s see how Harry Potter carves a place for himself with all the different factions of the Dresden verse trying to get a piece of him or kill him, and will Harry Dresden be able to survive the bad luck Harry Potter brings with him. Dresden is now ducking from a meeting with The Merlin who thinks he has something to do with Harry Potter being on the loose.

And now we return to Charity Carpenter taking Harry Potter from the hospital.
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I read the first few chapters of your story a while back, but haven't been read it since then. Coming from that viewpoint, I find the first format to be better. It gives out important info in a concise form. The second format sounds like a summary of a complete story. If that was what you're going for, I think the second one is better. If you're just trying to remind people about the characters and factions of your story, I think the first format is more appropriate.

 

Ditto with Jangel here.

 

First one is better!

 

You should already have seen my other comments, but in case you disappear, I far prefer the first version, but I don't know about the inclusion of the "Important Groups" part. Seems like it may be unnecessarily redundant - you could probably include the needed information in the individual descriptions.

If you DO keep it, please bold the organization names, to keep things consistent.

I think it does indeed help clear things up - fix up those minor errors, and you're good to go!

-J

 

A'ight Nuhuh, they are both good, but the question you need to look for here is, "What are you trying to do?"

I am confused, are you trying to redo the summary of your fic, or are you attempting to refresh the memory of your readers since the long time period upon which you didn't update?

If you are going for the story summary, as a whole, I would take the second one, and since it is so long, post it at the beginning of the first chapter. It explains enough to keep the reader interested, and also leaves us wondering what the crap you are talking about. Very well done.

However, if you are just attempting to refresh the minds of your loyal readers I would take the first. It tells what has happened so far, explains peoples backgrounds that people might have forgotten, and has good details for those whom need it.

However, in this case I wouldn't post it as an author note, I would instead, take and post it in your author profile. As such, put the authors note before the chapter, and tell your readers if they are having trouble remembering to check your profile page for the information that they need.

I would also put the authors note at the beginning of the story, after the new summary, and tell them to check the profile for those whom haven't read the dresden series before. As it clears up many things, and gives them a more thorough explanation of what is to come.

Well that's my opinion, cheers on your discission mate.

-Void